Apr 29, 2008

Inspired By Hillary’s Flat-Bed Truck Debates...

How Democrats Could Be Led ByHillary Rodham Clinton To A New State Of National Grace:

With Hillary Rodham Clinton leading the way not to debate on a flatbed truck but to invite Barack Obama to join her campaign with his, and hand in hand together, like that day in Montgomery, join ranks on behalf of the entire Democratic party at the New Harmony, Indiana, bridge into Illinois over the Wabash River now closed for lack of funds --

-- to begin an old-fashioned voters' rights drive for a summer of activism tours [like the Freedom riders] for college kids on break and limo liberals putting their gas money where their wine-drinking mouths are, helping disenfranchised citizens register to vote, under yesterday's onerous new photo ID ruling by the Supreme Court.

The Democrats could offer scholarships, if legal, for needy people to help pay for government issued IDs.

Photo identification requirements amount to a poll tax. As with the other methods of disfranchisement in American history, such as literacy tests and poll taxes, the photo identification requirement would present substantial barriers to voting and have a chilling effect on voter participation. As a significant number of racial and ethnic minority voters, voters with disabilities, rural and Native voters, the homeless, the elderly, and low-income people do not have photo identification nor the financial means to acquire it, the burden of this requirement would fall disproportionately and unfairly upon them. Requiring voters to purchase photo identification, or the supporting documents needed to obtain a photo ID, would be tantamount to requiring them to pay a poll tax, and therefore be suspect under the Voting Rights Act.[1] While the cost of identification documents may seem negligible to some, it represents a significant cost to many Americans. No citizen should have to pay to vote.